Abstract: None with any power of discernment can have failed to note two opposite tendencies at work in the present day: one, a tendency antagonistic, both in intention and in fact, to freedom; the other, a tendency to lay claim to freedom in ways which it is not always possible to defend. The second of these tendencies is seen in a number of educational theories which would, so far as possible, exclude discipline from life in the supposed interests of free development; and also in a certain impatience with all forms of authority, of which those who are associated with young people have been more conscious in recent years than, for example, before the War. But the other tendency we can see writ large on the recent history and present condition of nations and also reflected in the smaller letters of individual mentalities. In Germany, Italy and Russia we are watching the complete subordination of the individual to the State, not only in his external life and action, but also, so far as education and propaganda can achieve it, in thought and will.